


Build me a tower (of stardust, not ivory)

by Eunoiabound



Category: Kingsman: The Secret Service (2015)
Genre: Fluff, I admit that it's fluff, I just needed something sweet, M/M, bastardizing all the classics, doesn't necessarily ignore cannon, there is no smut here
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2015-03-11
Updated: 2015-03-11
Packaged: 2018-03-17 07:41:58
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,308
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/3521030
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Eunoiabound/pseuds/Eunoiabound
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"In school yah read poetry, yeah? And it talks about longing, and beauty like star light, and the space between stars."</p>
            </blockquote>





	Build me a tower (of stardust, not ivory)

**Author's Note:**

> The ship is going to be the end of me.

Free time among recruits was actually something that was fairly easy to come by. There would be days at a time where they would be constantly on the go: shooting, taking tests, running drills, all the while looking after their dogs. But these periods of intense activity would generally be followed by days of quiet, either because Merlin was pulled into monitoring a mission that needed his particular care, but more often than not it was simply to see how the candidates dealt with the rigorous back and forth life between action and inaction that was a major part of a Kingsman’s life. In many ways, a Kingsman agent was only a good as their cover, and that meant time, long stretches of time, recuperating and laying low, not the huge doses of adrenaline that came with being in the field. Mostly, this time was used by recruits to read from the library, go over some of the unclassified missions that were available to them to study, as well as hone skills that they might be lacking. It was also a time for recruits to contact their sponsors, if they were available.

On this particular evening, it was Harry that was looking for Eggsy. He had gotten back from a mission earlier than expected, the information having not being as well hidden or as encrypted as believed.  They had gotten into the habit of looking for each other any time they were aware that the other might be free. It had started as Harry mentoring Eggsy in some of the skills that he was having some difficulty with, though he a proven to be a quick study. But as time passed, it ended up being as much simply in each other’s company, playing game of cards or chess while talking about Harry’s past missions, Eggsy’s time with the marines, or any other numerous topics. These evenings could be quiet, with barely a murmur exchanged, or they could be raucous, with Harry talking about men who had come to the tailor’s shop, or Eggsy recounting exploits of his mates after a few to many at the pub. Sometimes they didn’t interact at all, Eggsy reading a book or playing with JB while Harry read the paper or filled out paperwork for both the tailor’s shop and for the missions that he was sent on occasionally.

After poking his head into the candidates’ dorm and seeing at a glance that Eggsy wasn’t there, though all the rest of the potentials were, he headed towards the tech department where it was generally easiest to find Merlin. While the recruits were not technically monitored at all times, there was rarely a moment when they were not being recorded in some capacity, thus making it the easiest way to find someone in the manor.

Merlin did not even look up when Harry entered the tech center. “Out at the practice range.” At Harry’s silence, he looked up and caught a glimpse of Harry’s raised eyebrow. “Eggsy’s out at the practice range.”

“You are assuming. That is not the only reason that I come here.”

Merlin turned around fully to look at Harry straight on. “No? I don’t see any paperwork, and you so rarely come down to say hello recently.”

Harry shook his head. “You know better than anyone that it had been incredibly busy for agents in the last little while. The fact that I have not been to seen you recently is not an indication of a lack of friendship.”

“I never said it was.” A moment of silence lay between them in the bright room where Merlin did his work. “All I’m saying, Harry, it that you spend a lot of time with the lad.”

“I’m his mentor, of course I do. I nominated him, and while I believe that he truly has the potential to be the greatest of us, there is simply so much that he does not know that the others might take for granted. It’s my responsibility to make sure that he knows all that he might need to know. The smallest piece of knowledge can prove useful if one is resourceful, and Eggsy is nothing is not resourceful.”

“After you, did you know that Agravaine is the knight that spends the most time with his candidate after you? Maybe two or three hours a fortnight, if even that.”

Harry scoffed, though there was a strange tension that gathered and spread between his shoulders. “You know better than anyone that not every mentor has a close relationship with their candidate. I need Eggsy to be the best. He has the potential, and I owe it to Lee. I cannot let a bright lad like that end up back in a council estate avoiding his petty criminal step-father.

Cool hazel eyes watched Harry from behind the thick rimmed black Kingsman glasses. “Aye, Harry. He has potential. But make sure that you are helping the boy for his own sake, not just his father’s. I know what Lee did struck you hard, but Eggsy is more than just his father’s son.” Seeing Harry’s carefully arranged questioning face, honed over years of field missions to disguise confusion, Merlin turned back to his desk, knowing there was nothing he could do at the moment that might not make the situation worse. _Repression_ , he thought, _was something at which Kingsman agents were far too apt_.  “Now, do you actually have any paperwork for me, or are you going to go find Eggsy? No paperwork? Then shoo. Unlike you dedicated field agents, I actually work all the time. Go find your lad.”

* * *

 

When Merlin had told Harry that Eggsy was at the practice range, he had expected to see the lights on and hear the sound of shots fired, even though the old stable that had been converted to the range was soundproofed and far away from the manor. Instead, Harry found that there were no lights, and it was only the hushing sounds of night that were in the cool air. It didn’t take him long to find Eggsy though.

Eggsy was just outside the range, on the side of the old stable facing away from the manor, sitting on an old unused mounting block that was pushed up against the side of the building. He was just sitting there, leaning back and looking at the sky, JB contentedly snuffling away in his sleep as his master’s hand slowly scritched along his neck. Harry just stood and looked for a minute, leaning against the corner of the building. At this moment, there was nothing that could distinguish Eggsy from any of the other candidates. No one would look at him and assume that he was any less than the others, not that he was in any way.  He was simply Eggsy at this moment, a handsome lad completive and caring. He looked, Harry realised, much like the photographs of the gentle young men who went off to that first great war, and whose deaths had been the instigation for the creation of the Kingsman agents.

“Yah gonna stand around all night, Harry, or are yah gonna pull up a seat? Or is it the suit that’s making yah stand around?”

Harry chuffed. “Hardly. Just thinking that you are becoming quite the picture of a gentleman.”

“Yeah, the very picture. Until I open my mouth. But it’s always been my looks that got me places.”

Harry took a seat, settling down beside Eggsy, and giving JB a slow scratch . “Not hardly, Eggsy. You are clever, your test results are off the charts both academically and in the physical trials. Your attitude is definitely one of the best. It’s just the trappings and the mannerisms that you need in order to transform.”

There was silence between the two, comfortable and deep, neither of them feeling the need to fill it. Harry felt the tension that had gathered between his shoulders when talking to Merlin slowly disintegrate, feeling it roll down through his shoulders and arms, could feel it almost drip down his crossed legs and his hands laying pliant in his lap. There in the dark, just sitting with Eggsy, Harry felt complete in the present. There was no drifting ponderings on the future, and aching memories of the past. They simply were there, in the moonlit dark.

After a time, Eggsy broke the silence. “It’s more than just trappings, Harry.”

Harry hmmed, leaving space for Eggsy to fill with what he was thinking.

“D’know, I didn’t ever see stars, really, until after I left London and joined the marines. There’s just too many lights in London, especially ‘round the estates. Yah can see a few, if the night is clear ‘nugh, but nothing like the country. Never really even left London till I joined up. Even then they weren’t as clear as here.”

“But now you know what they looked like. It’s just about the time needed, my dear boy.”

Eggsy raked his fingers through his hair. “No, Harry. It’s more than that. It’s-,” he paused, and the silence that ensued was filled with a tension that was strung tight between them. “In school yah read poetry, yeah? And it talks about longing, and beauty like star light, and the space between stars. And in London it’s street lights and bits of rough and what yah read in school don’t make sense, because yah have nothing to compare it to. Trappings don’t change what yah know that yah don’t think about. Its experience, and it’s years of little moments that mean nothing that mean I don’t understand anything.”

A silence spread, then Harry spoke quietly. “Remember that you are a human being with a soul and the divine gift of articulate speech: that your native language is the language of Shakespeare and Milton and The Bible.”

Eggsy shot Harry a crooked smile. “Yah forgot the rest of it. ‘And stop crooning like a bilious pidgeon.’”

Harry laughed softly, his eyes as soft. “If you had seen ‘My Fair Lady’ it really should not surprise me that you have read Pygmalion.”

“Yeah. Preferred it to the film, really. I hated it when I was younger.”

“And yet.”

“Mum used to watch old movies for days after dad died. And I hated Higgins, and everything he was. He transformed Eliza, true ’nugh. But what was there of her that was left, after? She could only be his when she went to him, like. He made a lady to fetch his slippers. She just wanted to be equal, was willing to live through whatever he gave her, as long as he gave her that. But he didn’t. He made her something amazing so that he could take the credit.” Eggsy’s face was twisted as he spat out the words, his eyes glistening with unshed tears. “How could she let him to that to her?”

 _Ah._  Here was what was truly made Eggsy so angry and confused. “Some people just cannot believe that they are loved for themselves. That what they are is enough, despite their inherent flaws and weaknesses.” Eggsy started to try and rub the tears that were trying to fall angrily from his face, but Harry grabbed his hands, and slowly began to brush them away gently with his fingers, gun calloused and slender. The hitched breath was barely audible, and it was only the small jolt between his fingers that let him know that it was real.  He let his fingers rest there gently, hardly breathing and yet trembling. He swallowed, feeling as though his heart was racing and his body was trying to go in a million directions at once. “Did you ever read the original myth, Eggsy?”

Eyes wide, Eggsy minutely shook his head, carefully not dislodging the fingers which were still tremulously resting just below his cheekbone.

“There was a sculptor in ancient Greece named Pygmalion who was so very, very alone. In his loneliness he carved a statue out of ivory, the most beautiful woman he had ever seen. But he was still alone.  He looked at the statue every day, but it was always stone, never alive. One day, when his heart was breaking, he went to the temple of Aphrodite and quietly admitted his loneliness and his longing for his stone companion to be alive. Coming back, he see that the ivory statue was as it ever was, unchanged by his prayer.”

“He placed a single kiss on her lips to say goodbye, and found that they were warm. Hopefully, his kissed her lids that she might see, her ears that she might hear, and her feet that she might roam free. When he looked up, he saw that his statue was looking down.  She kissed his lips so that he would smile, and his hands so that he would touch her. But she was ivory still until she stepped from her pedestal and her feet touched the dirt floor of his house. She spoke then, of watching him in his loneliness and crying out for a way to end his loneliness. It was only with his kiss that she was finally able to act.”

Harry stopped. He closed his eyes and started to curl his fingers away from Eggsy’s face. A warm hand caught his, held it tight pressed against the warm cheek, and the press of lips against the heel of his palm. Opening his eyes, he saw Eggsy’s twinkling blue ones. “I definitely prefer to be compared to the statue to the prostitute Harry, for all that yah toffs love a bit of rough.” Smiling lips pressed against Harry’s, and pulled away slowly. “Do gentlemen have rules about fucking?”

Harry threw back his head and laughed, startling JB off Eggsy lap. He leaned in and whispered in Eggsy’s ear. “No, just about telling.”

**Author's Note:**

> I just couldn't seem to push this one further. I love this ship, and I love these characters. I love the potential of the Kingsman fandom. Feel free to shoot me a message over on Tumblr, headcanons, prompts and just say hi.


End file.
